Onlies set for Music City — but not for that reason

Seems like the Onlies, well, the founding duo, anyway, are taking the name of their 2013 release, "Open Road," to heart.

Come May 18, Fawn Larson and Will Harrison are bound for Nashville, Music City USA, and not for the reasons most musicians do: They're going because they want to, and because they can.

"Most people think we're moving to try to promote our music and stuff, but it's actually not even the top reason," said Larson. "Will and I both have this attitude — and I'm really thankful for this — of just being content with what happens.

"Not that we don't have ambition or anything like that," Larson continued. "But were not the kind of people to say we've got to make it happen, we have to move. We both feel like wherever you're at you can do something special.

"You don't necessarily need to be in a certain place to do something big and special," she said.

But while in Nashville, they do plan on landing some gigs here and there.

"We are excited about getting to go and play to a different audience to see how it goes," said Larson, adding, "But they better live up to Lafayette."

"It'll be a show, but it'll also be just a fun going-away party, too, that everyone's welcome to come to," she said. "The more the better."

The move isn't something that just came up, Larson said she's been wanting check out other places to live.

"I've been wanting to move for a while now. I've been having this itch to go somewhere and just been kind of been trying to find the right place," said Larson. "But it's also about a place Will and I can feel good about going together."

And in the process of traveling the past several years, "Nashville was the place that we just both agreed really strongly," Larson said. "We just felt really at home there."

Larson will keep her day job, transferring in house to her employer's Murfreesboro, Tennessee, location. Harrison who graduates from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette the day before leaving town wants to pursue music publicity.

"And that's a really good area for that," Larson said.

The Onlies began as a duo a couple of years ago; they expanded into a band about a year ago with Gary Newman on bass and Luke Andrus on drums to add "more pumped up energy."

Having a rhythm section also allowed the duo to "play more of our instruments because the more support you have with drums and bass, the more free you can be to play" banjo, fiddle and guitar instead of using them simply for rhythmic purposes.

"We had so many experiences. It definitely helped me get to be a better performer. I was in bands before, but this one helped me get better with interacting with crowds; trying to connect with the audience," she said.

The Onlies, said Larson, "really helped me grow in that aspect. And in songwriting, too."

Co-writing with Harrison has helped Larson take a different approach to her songs.

"We have such different songwriting styles and I tend to write these more melancholic kind of songs," Larson said. "And being in this band, it made me expand my horizons a little bit more and write songs that were fun to listen to. Not every song has to have a great, deep meaning behind it. Sometimes the crowd just wants to drink beer and have fun. And that helped me in that regard.

"People are really supportive. It's not like competition, everyone is helping each other out," she said. "Kevin (Sekhani), he's one of those kind of people that will just go totally out of his way to help with whatever you're doing, bring you in on a project, get the word out — that kind of attitude."

In the process of packing. Last gig before departure is three days prior to doing so. And, oh, yeah, Harrison is graduating the day before departure.

"It's going to be whirlwind of happenings," Larson said.

Dominick Cross is entertainment writer for the Times of Acadiana and Daily Advertiser. Contact him at dcross@theadvertiser.com.